With quality power supply, remote villages witness drastic transformation

Visakhapatnam: Although it has been 75 years since the country achieved Independence, 18,000 villages have been groping in the dark to see the 'light' as they still have no power supply. By removing several shortcomings, the Central government is stepping forward to generate power in remote hamlets and brighten up people's lives, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing at the 'Ujjwal Bharat Ujjwal Bhavishya – Power @ 2047' programme virtually in Visakhapatnam on Saturday.

The Prime Minister mentioned that eight years back, the BJP-led NDA government took the initiative to transform every part of the nation's power sector. And that work was done related to generation, transmission, distribution and connection to strengthen the power sector across the country like never before. Also, steps were taken to bridge the gap between power generation and consumption in the energy sector, the Prime Minister informed.

As a part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav programme, the PM interacted with various beneficiaries located in Khowai in Tripura, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Mandi in Himachal Pradesh in a virtual mode. In Visakhapatnam, the Prime Minister interacted with K Kranti Kumar from Ratnagiri Colony, Chintapallimandal, Alluri Sitarama Raju district addressing him as 'Kranti garu'. The PM questioned the beneficiary what difference did Kranti experience before and after getting the power facility in his village.

Responding to it, the beneficiary explained how his life has transformed after availing DeenDayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana. "Earlier, we could not do any work at night and there was always an element of fear lurking as we had to put up with darkness due to lack of power supply. Our children could not study at night. But not any longer. After 2015, our life has changed drastically. Now, children could read any time they want to and we could carry out work even during nights," Kranti responded, adding that with the supply of power, they could get safe drinking water in the village.

Expressing happiness over the beneficiaries' response, the PM highlighted how they have grown to reach out to the neighbouring villagers with the power supply and help enhance their lives as well. The PM underlined the importance of saving power and encouraged people to go for green energy projects.

On the concluding day of the 'Ujjwal Bharat Ujjwal Bhavishya Power@2047 Vidyut mahostavam', Special Chief Secretary Energy, K Vijayanand said that under the leadership of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, several innovative projects were introduced in AP.

"Our state is racing in power development by updating and achieving ability in power generation, supply and distribution systems and providing reliable and uninterrupted 24x7 hour quality power at lowest rates. As a part of capacity building, another addition to the existing power generation capacity of 18,800 MW, 1,600 MW generation capacity will be set up by 2022-23," he informed.

Speaking on the occasion, Piyush Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power, said that Andhra Pradesh stands as an example in the country in power generation. APTransco CMD B Sridhar, CMD of APEPDCL K Santhosha Rao, among others, spoke.